I've found myself yelling at the tv more watching their show than hockey games. They make a lot of bad assumptions, which is fine for entertainment and science for kids. But after that they make a claim as to whether it's busted or not busted.

Quasi science being portrayed as quasi science is fine. Quasi science portrayed as science is not.

I like Mythbusters - I don't think they claim to be a science show. Some episodes are very good - others are a bit dodgy. Their skills at devising tests and building apparatus are sometimes quite remarkable. Episodes where they use rocket sleds etc. to bang things together are just not shown on any other "science" show. Or the episode where they used 5000 pounds of explosive to make artificial diamonds. They must have an incredible budget. And they have got Kari Byron - always worth a bit of a perv. "Conventional" science shows like Catalyst really are almost painfully boring and are also painfully politically correct with all the usual crap about GW etc.

Yes, it is. Shows like these must strike a balance in their informational vs. entertainment content. (Which is true in general of nonfiction on television.) I know, having written for some of them. Mythbusters' popularity is in no small part due to the fact that their content is skewed toward the entertainment side -- both in the "myths" they choose to "bust" and the experimental methodologies written into the scripts. You know, there is often a simple and irrefutable mathematical proof for many of the propositions they test, but who the hell is going to watch that.

The classic kiddie science show (Julius Miller above, Don Herbert aka Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, and my personal favorite, Beakman's World) tends to employ classic science textbook experiments, but hopefully with a fresh twist of some kind... comic being my choice. The other "secret" to Mythbusters, if you can call it that: the classic science experiments are recast as a pop culture technical "myths" of some kind, which they then set out to debunk. But instead of performing the experiment at laboratory table scale, their tests are of absurdly large, quasi-cinematic proportions. And you're right, it's not really science -- more like Hollywood meatball engineering.

Yes, it is. Shows like these must strike a balance in their informational vs. entertainment content. (Which is true in general of nonfiction on television.) I know, having written for some of them. Mythbusters' popularity is in no small part due to the fact that their content is skewed toward the entertainment side -- both in the "myths" they choose to "bust" and the experimental methodologies written into the scripts. You know, there is often a simple and irrefutable mathematical proof for many of the propositions they test, but who the hell is going to watch that.

The classic kiddie science show (Julius Miller above, Don Herbert aka Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, and my personal favorite, Beakman's World) tends to employ classic science textbook experiments, but hopefully with a fresh twist of some kind... comic being my choice. The other "secret" to Mythbusters, if you can call it that: the classic science experiments are recast as a pop culture technical "myths" of some kind, which they then set out to debunk. But instead of performing the experiment at laboratory table scale, their tests are of absurdly large, quasi-cinematic proportions. And you're right, it's not really science -- more like Hollywood meatball engineering.

As their budget has got [a lot] larger the science value has become less. Sometimes these days it is quite contrived and silly, and then other episodes are still really good.

Sure the show has to be entertaining and the "science" dumbed-down. I don't mind that so much. My problem is the presenters' overinflated view of their own understanding, eg they frequently draw conclusions that are not justified based on their experimental results.

Sure the show has to be entertaining and the "science" dumbed-down. I don't mind that so much. My problem is the presenters' overinflated view of their own understanding, eg they frequently draw conclusions that are not justified based on their experimental results.

I've watched a lot of episodes and don't agree.

Science to me is research and proving fact, they generally do pretty well.

Shows like that also bring science to more people than any other medium so that's a good thing.

Speaking of Mythbusters, this happened about 2 hours ago in Northern Ca:

The Alameda Sheriff PIO, JD Nelson said a projectile from an Alameda County firing range, in Dublin, has accidentally missed its intended target. Instead, the object blasted through the wall of a home near Tassajara Rd & Somerset Lane.

The projectile reportedly entered the home through one wall and exited through another.

According to the Alameda Sheriff, the cannonball "took a few unfortunate bounces" during a Mythbusters experiment gone awry.

I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect anything too deep in a twenty minute show, just as you can't expect to read anything particularly comprehensive in a magazine. All you can hope for is that the writers and presenters can share the knowledge in an entertaining and accessible way, and this isn't easy, but when it's done well it can create an interest that may grow as a result of the readers/viewers own research.

You sometimes hear popular magazines criticized for their tech coverage but when I was a young fella it was articles by men like Jim McFarland and Gordon Jennings that spurred me on to further reading, and discovering Heywood, Taylor, Blair and so on. These guys (McFarland, Jennings, even CJ Baker etc) had at least some idea of what they were on about, but just as importantly they could write in a way that non-engineers could understand.

Jennings wrote in the mid 1990s to a man who expressed to him his wish to be a writer, wondering what elements were needed to become one:

"On my 50th birthday, now long behind me, friends presented a cake that said, "Against all odds," which probably summed up my life fairly well. When you've been reported dead, twice, and none of your friends thought it necessary to check to see if the news was true, you have to figure you have been strolling a little close to the edge. Let me offer you some comfort about the accretion of years: If you live a long time and pay attention, you'll know a whole bunch of useful things; and you'll find, in time, that old go-fast guys have no wrinkles on the inside."

I was amazed at Mythbusters' bombproofing of a house with a coating of common pickup truck bed liner. Apparently the home owners and van owners of Dublin, CA missed that episode and neglected to spray their homes and vans.

Their best shows are interesting and occasionally surprising, I think the three I really liked were the doomed attempt to build a jet pack, just because it was a nice build project, the one where they showed how easy it was to drive a car up onto a moving truck, and the rather dodgier but still interesting attempt to measure the effect of drafting on mpg.

Their best shows are interesting and occasionally surprising, I think the three I really liked were the doomed attempt to build a jet pack, just because it was a nice build project, the one where they showed how easy it was to drive a car up onto a moving truck, and the rather dodgier but still interesting attempt to measure the effect of drafting on mpg.

Plus anything where Tory gets hurt.

My 12 yr old boys just love the show and I get to help them build some of the projects. They want a sawdust cannon but I was able to convince them that the australian summer was not a good time to try that one.It realy sparks scientific method in young minds . Must be a good thingmal